


Into Your Hands I Commend My Soul

by opheliaes



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM Vibes, Brothels, Chinese Character, Chinese Language, Colonialism, Drug Abuse, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone Should Go To Therapy, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Filipino Character, Gangs, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Human Trafficking, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Infidelity, Inspired by Miss Saigon, Interracial Relationship, Light BDSM, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Past Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Prostitution, Racial slurs, Racism, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, Scars, Self-Harm, Sexism, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Substance Abuse, Tommy Shelby Needs Therapy, Triad - Freeform, Unhealthy Relationships, Unplanned Pregnancy, With some creative license taken due to practical limitations, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:00:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliaes/pseuds/opheliaes
Summary: "Don't you understand, love? All these years I thought I left my soul in France. Now I see you've kept it safe for me all along."For the Shelby family, happiness has never come easy. For Guadalupe Zhang, it never did either.
Relationships: Ada Shelby/Freddie Thorne, Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby, Esme Shelby/John Shelby, Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 139





	1. Strangers pt. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Italics denotes words spoken in Chinese/another foreign language.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're not lovers

**A train bound for Rugby from London, October 1918**

* * *

Lupe fiddled with the railway ticket in her gloved hands, ignoring the silence from her travel companions in favor of periodically asking the conductor in polished English when the Rugby stop would be next. While the anxiety of traveling unaccompanied through the British countryside would have otherwise rendered her to peel her gloves off and wear at her nails, she did her best to still this less than attractive impulse. The last time she’d been caught, the madames had torn into her palms ‘till they were raw as a warning.

Cuifen had made herself clear; Lupe and the rest of the girls were to travel from London to Birmingham, switching trains at Rugby. At Birmingham Station, they’d be promptly collected by Cuifen and two guards and packed off to the few establishments Green Gang held north of London; a brothel and a bar in Birmingham’s scarce Chinese Quarters.

Guadalupe had asked why the Gang thought to send some of their best workers away from the bustling Chinatown on Limehouse Causeway they had all lived in since they were little. Cuifen’s last words to her echoed in her mind.

“ _T_ _he war’s ended and they’ll be sending the boys home soon. There’s no better customer than a man who’s seen the blood and gore of war. Gods willing, they’ll be coming home with a new appetite for morphine and we’ll have them by all their balls. Mr. Du wants us to establish a foothold in the North. Not a better way to do that then whores. You keep an eye on the rest of the birds, Xiu Jia. You’re the_ only _one I trust.”_

The madame must have anticipated an escape attempt or two from the younger brothel-sisters on their first unminded trip beyond Limehouse. Lupe knew she’d do them a favor by seeing them all to their destination. Their fate would be far worse at the hands of disgruntled triad enforcers than it would be in Birmingham. A few years past she might have had empathy for their wide, scared eyes and trembling shoulders, hardly able to understand a word the strange men around them spoke. Now she could only find pity within herself. Her sisters would learn and adapt, just as she once did.

The sentiment reminded her to quickly flit her eyes around the car to ensure there were four girls still sitting where they ought to be.

Huiyin sat directly across from her with her head bowed and flinched every time she met another person’s eyes. Liangliang held Huiyin’s hand in her own, staring out into the passing European countryside with the vacancy that came with laudanum bottle she kept in her silk purse.

Across the aisle, Shulan and Xiaoyu pressed their curl-crowned heads together in what looked to her like restless sleep, their linen hats sitting askew.

To be fair, Lupe thought to herself, they would all have to adapt. The last time she’d traveled had been her first. The sound of the steam engine as it drove its’ wheels across the tracks echoed the sound the waves made against the hull of the ship that bore her to London, all those years ago. The crisp taste of the ocean breeze she'd not inhaled in many years and for once in a very long time, she found herself missing the home she'd left behind in Shanghai.

Cuifen told them all their new home would be Birmingham. Landlocked and farther north than London, Lupe wondered if she'd die there without ever seeing the sea again.

London hardly counted as a real home, the English Channel more a stream than a true branch of the Atlantic.

She would not miss the thick industrial grey fog that bore that cursed city down like shackles, nor would she miss the leering of the sailors docked at Canary Wharf, hoping to get serviced for free. The rundown workhouses, the sprawling tenements that stunk of consumption, the streets trod with mud and shit. She figured that at the end of days, God was as like to send London ablaze as he was to save it.

By no means did Lupe think Birmingham would be the Heaven to London’s Hell; she was called dreamy frequently, but never called stupid. She expected the same coppers who spat curses at her as she walked past, daring her to give them a reason to cart her off to a cell, the same shopkeepers and chemists who barred her from their stores with a glare and a muttered “chinkie”.

As the train pulled into Rugby station, her same dreamy nature allowed the tiniest flutter of hope to bloom in her chest that her life could be different.

* * *

**Chinese Quarters, Birmingham, January 1919**

* * *

Truthfully, the only thing different so far was the gawkers who looked at her like they'd never seen a Chinawoman before. She painted the same carmine slick on her mouth every morning, lined her almond-shaped eyes in the same fine soot they made back in Limehouse. Even the porridge tasted the same, salt, ginger, and garlic contrasting the comforting starch of rice on her tongue.

The madame's footsteps trotted briskly towards the cramped room Lupe shared with Xiaoyu. Their floors were strewn with fresh straw and their window was roughly tacked over with cheap linen that barely softened the bite of the cutting winter breeze.

" _Quickly girls. We've got a new shipment of men coming in today and there's not a moment to waste. Xiu Jia, take the red qipao. Leave the cream one for Xiaoyu."_ As suddenly as Cuifen burst in, her wrinkled arms laden with freshly laundered dresses, she disappeared. Black rayon stockings with red seams were liberated from Lupe's trunk, along with a red brassiere and knickers. The dress fit far more snug over her frame than it would over Xiaoyu or Huiyin. There'd been plenty of complaints from the women in Chinatown who'd stitched the dresses but none from the men who frequented her company. She drew her hair from the curled rags she slept in and pinned it up in a way that could be undone quickly and with that, her night began.

It seemed like the trains ran every hour that day, pouring war-weary soldiers out of the cars like ale. Those with and without wives to greet them swarmed every pub, den, and whorehouse in town. Lupe remembered that England was supposed to have won the war. The men that were brought back could not be called victors by any stretch. Young boys tread frequently underfoot, carrying bags filled with laudanum and morphine with them out into the Birmingham streets. The hospital had run out, and the soldiers who were well enough to return home nearly matched the hospital's demand with their own.

Many of the boys rejoiced in the comforts of home. Just as many quietly nursed drinks and pipes with their heads down or looked at nothing at all. Every single one of them looked at her with the same sick, haunted, nightmare gaze. Like the stare of the dead rabbit that her mother brought home from the market long ago. Like when she was twelve and found Bingyan underneath the bed, raw bruises around her neck and no breath in her lungs. 

The scent of gunpowder, blood, sweat, and primal fear almost overpowered the drowsy, cloying poppy fumes.

Lupe's cheeks ached from smiling but she dared not stop. The nameless man from whose lap she perched upon looked at her like a drowning man does land, glazed over muddy brown eyes begging her to make the burdens he came back with (and his pockets) lighter. She let her hands linger delicately on his uniformed chest and briefly turned her head towards the doorway so he might follow the line of her jaw and smell the faint traces of Chinese perfume on her neck.

For one, brief, shining moment, she could smell the sea.

Guadalupe had never seen eyes like that before. Eyes that washed over her like the water did when she was five and carefree, toddling at the beach. She couldn't look away even if she wanted to. It shouldn't have been possible to look at a person like he did, his piercing gaze stripping her down to the dreamy girl she was under the scar tissue and paint. He stood a good head or so taller than her with arched cheekbones and full lips that could put a statue to shame, deep bruised hollows under his eyes that matched hers, and long, fine, calloused hands that she wanted nothing more than to hold. The way he clenched his jaw and his knuckles like he didn't believe he'd made it back alive and this was all real.

All Lupe wanted to do was to reassure him it was.

She disentangled herself from the man with muddy eyes who hardly noticed her disappearance.

The soldier boy in the doorway walked towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I'm Chinese and Filipina myself, so I do feel comfortable using slurs like "chinkie/chink" as is historically appropriate. As I am not Roma, nor anything else, any other slurs used in the show like "g***y" will be included but written in asterisks as indicated due to my own personal discomfort with using slurs that are not mine to reclaim.
> 
> Thank you, reader, for enjoying my little labor of love. Feel free to leave a kudos and comment below; the encouragement only makes me type faster.
> 
> The Chinese diaspora in the West, including myself, have both a Western/English name and a Chinese name. Guadalupe, our main character, is referred to by both her Western name and her Chinese name, Xiu Jia/Xiujia.
> 
> The London and Northwestern Railway was an actual railway line that operated in the late 1800s through the earlier half of the 1900s, and connected London and Birmingham through two trains with a transfer at Rugby. See here: http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/Map/index.php
> 
> The Green Gang was a real Shanghai gang/secret society/triad that begun in the 1800s and was operational until the 1950s. They engaged in, among others, the opium/drug trade, heroin refineries, prostitution, and trafficking. They additionally had influence beyond Asia and into the West. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gang
> 
> The first Chinatown in London was in Limehouse, along the Limehouse Causeway, near Canary Wharf in the East End. In modernity, its' encompassed a significant part of Westminster. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_London
> 
> Mr. Du refers to Du Yuesheng, a real person in history and a major Roaring Twenties era Shanghai crime boss in the Green Gang. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Yuesheng
> 
> Opium bricks (which were smoked from a pipe), from which morphine, heroin, and laudanum were all manufactured from, was not a primary anaesthetic/drug of choice during World War 1. Alcohol, morphine, and cocaine were, so soldiers most likely came home with a direct addiction to morphine, eventually graduating to opium due to tightened restrictions on morphine. See here: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/drugs
> 
> The Birmingham Chinese Quarters actually weren't established until the 1960s, and not officially recognized till the 1980s. The show and I have both taken a little creative license there, which I've tried to make slightly more accurate by reducing the Quarters to only a few establishments (the brothel and a pub, amongst others) See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Quarter,_Birmingham
> 
> Laudanum was, by the 1910s/1920s, still available at a chemist/druggist. Along with diamorphine, which is also known as heroin, both were considered "healthier", less addictive variants to morphine/opium. The UK had severely restricted opium dens by the later 1910s/early 1920s, so it was much more likely to be addicted to this time period's equivalent of over the counter drugs. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudanum#History
> 
> After WW1 ended in 1918, all troops were slowly removed from the field in waves in a process known as "demobilization". To match the timeline of the show, I have the Shelby brothers sent home in the beginning of 1919, when Winston Churchill became Minister of War and sped up the demobilization process. See here: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/demobilization
> 
> A well-written article on the 1920s ladies underwear, which is my source for the brasserie and the knickers. The creative liberty I am taking is omitting the slip, which for a prostitute I imagine would be too many layers of clothing. See here: https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/lingerie-history/
> 
> For Lupe, I've picked rayon stockings, a newly invented material that was very popular for stocking in the inter war period. As described in this article, "Cuban heels" were also popular and stocking seams were a must and could be colored. I imagine Lupe is wearing black stockings with red Cuban heels and red seams. See here: https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/the-various-styles-of-1920s-stockings/


	2. Strangers, pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're just strangers

**Chinese Quarters, Birmingham, January 1919**

* * *

“Your name, sir?”

His eyes widened imperceptibly at her words, which only drew Lupe’s attention to the delicate, dark lashes that framed them.

“Tommy Shelby.”

She’d heard plenty of Birmingham accents in the few months she’d been here, but never one quite like his. His voice resounded through his chest solid and deep.

“Well Mr. Shelby, what can we do for you?” There was a soul under all of his sharp edges. A soul just like hers. They’d barely spoken at all but in these brief moments, he made her feel like they were the only two people in the world. Just a man and a woman. Lupe wondered what it would be like to feel that all-encompassing, magnetic focus every day.

“A room if you’d please.” Tommy pulled closer to her and relaxed his death grip on his uniformed cap. He stood at least a head taller than her and she needed to crane her head up just to keep his gaze.

“Just the room? Or is there anything else we can…” Her words trailed into almost a whisper. Lupe was thirteen when she learned that trick. To pull a customer even closer. She wanted Tommy closer. Was he as struck by her as she was of him? “...provide.”

“A woman like you should’ve caught my meaning.”

With a red-lipped smile, Lupe beckoned him towards the room she’d been assigned for the night. “You’re quite mistaken, Mr. Shelby. There are no women like me.”

* * *

She lit more red candles as he settled his khaki jacket and hat on the divan tucked in the corner. “My name is Guadalupe if you’d care to know.”

“After ‘The Blessed Virgin’? Interesting name for a whore.” Tommy eyed her up and down as he spoke. She could practically see the intricate machinery that made up Tommy Shelby reevaluating her in his head. Lupe let her fingers pause in their mission of divesting her of her dress in order to skim them over the curve of his cheek as he almost unconsciously leaned into her touch.

She pulled away, the heat of his body a brand against her fingertips. A quick movement of a hairpin and her polished ebony curls tumbled down her back. “She absolves penitents of their sins. I absolve penitents of a different kind of sin.”

He murmured into her ear with a hint of both steel and humor as he tucked himself into her side to settle those nimble, rough hands on her waist with far more care than Lupe ever thought a man would touch her with. “And what would you know of my fucking sins?” 

“You carry them about as well as you carry that uniform, Mr. Shelby. Like you carry that firearm by your side. The stories of suffering always differ but it all feels the same.” Her mistake was known in the instant he pulled away from her and she cursed the words that tumbled unbidden from her mouth. Without him near, the icy breeze cut her to the bone. Lupe resisted the urge to drape herself soothingly on the sharp, geometric planes of his back that suddenly faced her, to count the vertebrae that peaked through the back of his shirt with her lips.

“I didn’t come here to talk about that damned war.”

She sat on the ornate embroidery of the coverlet and gestured to the empty space next to her. “Then we won’t.” When Tommy finally sat, after a heartbeat of him just standing there, looking like he might flee and never come back, Lupe leaned her head against his broad shoulder. “It never happened. We can just be a man and a woman, sitting on a bed.”

“... I’d like that.” Hesitantly, he entwined his fingers with her own with a fragility that nearly broke her heart.

She thought happiness suited him more than the devastation currently painted in the tenseness of his jaw did. “How about you tell me of Tommy Shelby, the man.” Her bitten nails absentmindedly traced the lines and calluses that tracked across his palms.

“Do you always talk this much?” The war might’ve stolen away what charm Lupe could tell he once had but the teasing lilt in his raspy, accented voice still got her heart racing. Tommy had lowered his face towards her, so close she could see his blown-out pupils, dark with lust, and smell the musk and salt on his skin. The candlelight flickered for a moment and sent warm shadows dancing across that wicked, sinfully generous mouth.

Ah, but she couldn’t let him have all the fun. “We’ve got all night, Mr. Shelby. Have you considered yet that maybe I’d just like to hear your voice?” A gentle head tilt emphasized the curve of her smile and as she peered innocently through her thick lashes, she saw him bite his lip and inhale sharply-

His fingers grasped her chin, his mouth fluttering like a butterfly against the corner of her mouth as he spoke.

“I ain’t one for mindless chatter.” Petal soft kisses were pressed behind her ear, down the fine marble column of her neck, the crook of her shoulder, then the hollow of her collarbone. He would drive her mad if she let him. No matter how pretty he was nor the warmth of the heat he ignited under her skin, she had no intention to let him. Lupe sucked violet blooms under his jaw then lathed the shell of his ear with the flat of her tongue.

The involuntary moan she wrung from him was well worth it. “But you are one for a mindless shag?” Beneath the fingers she’d settled on his neck, his pulse jumped at the huskiness of her voice.

“That’s enough backtalk love, you’ve made your point.” Tommy peeled the rest of the silken dress she’d started to undo earlier that evening and let it drift to the floor. With a giggle, she abruptly pulled away from him to unbutton her brassiere just out of reach, tossing a coy look over her shoulder. The way he burned while he watched her… the intensity in him averted her gaze, if only for a heartbeat.

That momentary submission was taken as the invitation it was. With the grace and agility of a hunter, stalking his prey, he moved to press himself flush to her back, those hands skimming here and there across her body without settling where he knew she wanted him to go. “And what exactly was my point, Mr. Shelby?” 

“Sometimes…” He paused to tuck his face into her soft throat with a deep breath as if he wished to impress her scent and the taste of her skin into his mind and never forget it. “Sometimes I can’t believe I made it back at all.” Tommy didn’t need to say it, but she heard the unspoken _especially now_. His gruff whisper sounded like something that might be spoken in the sanctity of the confessional. "That I never deserved to." She could hear the thick, poisonous guilt of the survivor in his voice, the self-loathing and raw, tragic humanity he hid under all those rough layers.

Lupe turned to press his chest against hers and her lips against his. “Then let me absolve you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I enjoyed writing this sweet, sexy chapter, please believe this story will do well to earn the "Angst with a Happy Ending" tag lol.
> 
> If you liked it or if you have feedback on what I can do better, I welcome you to leave a comment below.  
> Once again, thank you for reading. While I write for the fulfillment it brings me to bring this story to life, I also write to make other people as enraptured as other fanfiction ensnares me.


	3. Acquainted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Girl, I'm so glad we're acquainted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the update delay, I struggled with this chapter. Now that we have more of the worldbuilding/exposition/character and relationship development set up, we can progress with the plot.

**Chinese Quarters, Birmingham, April 1919**

* * *

Spring never came to London and it did not come to Birmingham. Any hopes Lupe had had about this new land had been promptly dashed in the months since she’d come here. The constant smoke outside choked in her lungs with the bitter aftertaste of coal fires and melted iron.

Young lords with a taste for Oriental exoticism, politicians with a love of chinkie submission after the Yihetuan Uprising, and merchants seeking the comforts of home all alike poured through their doors in London, with plenty of coin to line the Gang’s pockets. In Birmingham, they got steelworkers with callused hands here, assembly linemen, stablehands, crafters of delicate chinaware and fine metal pen nibs. Cuifen was forced to expand operations when fleshmongering brought in hardly enough money to break even.

They now had a legal laundry and an illegal gambling hall with coppers well paid to look the other way.

After Tommy visited her that memorable first time, Cuifen and Zhang both warned her to stay clear of the Peaky Blinders. Guadalupe had seen her fair share of clashes with the Sabinis’ and Alfie Solomons’ crew but those boys never ventured too far into Chinatown. Birmingham left them exposed and vulnerable at the mercy of gangs they didn’t know and didn’t trust. Of course, the damage had already been done. The day they refused service to the Blinders was the day they would all wake up the next morning in a bed of ashes and kerosene. This patronage would begrudgingly be allowed to continue, to Cuifen’s blunt displeasure.

Almost like clockwork, Tommy Shelby saw her nearly every Saturday night since his return home and always asked for her by name. She’d had an inkling of his brothers’ existence, an aunt and a little sister in Small Heath as well, but never had the pleasure of making their acquaintance. As if the scrutiny of a rival gang could be called a pleasure.

It was this that coloured her surprise upon seeing the two younger Shelby brothers both darkening their doorway on a bright Wednesday afternoon, when the Quarters smelled like clean laundry and fresh soap suds. Later that evening sex, opium, and alcohol would lace the air instead. She’d been arranging a nearly endless row of grey woolen suits tagged on the sleeve with black ink calligraphy on creamy white rice paper when they came in. 

John was hardly striking at all. Definitely not when compared against his brother, with eyes like dirty snow and the face and ears of a particularly experienced boxer. Where Tommy was a statue, ice-cold and razor-sharp, John had the frame of a rugby player with those ruddy cheeks and stubby fists. This man looked more at home with blood on his teeth and mud on his hands than he did now, scrubbed clean in a fresh, if not outdated suit. She had knocked lesser men out for looking at her the way he looked at her, full of naked desire and entitlement that left a grimy feeling on her skin.

“Misters Shelby, how can I be of assistance to you today?” A smile stretched her cheeks, genuine for Tommy and full of teeth for his brother. Beneath the safe cover of the front counter, Lupe’s anxious hands worried at the loose threads of her skirt. Tommy met her gaze briefly and wrinkled the corners of his eyes in the barest of smiles.

He set a handful of pounds down on the rich varnished wood. “Just the suits, Lupe-”

John abruptly cut in. “We’ll take you as well, won’t we Tommy.” One didn’t make it long in the industry she found herself in without recognizing that wolf edge to his devil-may-care grin and the danger it promised. Lupe dropped her smile as quickly as she could. As she reached up on the tips of her toes to pull the suits down, a loose lock of dark hair slipped out of her messy chignon and brushed against the pale back of her neck.

A sheathe of waxen paper was cut free from the bolt and laid out with paperweights. Just as her hand reached out to fold the first suit into the paper, a sweaty palm with busted open knuckles grabbed her wrist and yanked her nose to nose with John. “I said we’d take you as well. Can you not understand the King’s English?” The derision in his tone was as thick as tar. Maybe he was only used to shrieking slags who jumped at the smallest glare, right proper English roses. Maybe he thought because she’d fucked his brother he could cow her into fucking him too. Maybe John thought a little Chinawoman like her could be battered and thrown around like a doll to the tune of his will. Fury crystallized beneath her skin.

She’d make him bleed like a pig if he tried, Peaky Blinders be damned.

Lupe’s snarl echoed into the nearly-empty hall, as dead and cold as an amputated limb. “I don’t give a fuck who your brother is. Touch me again with that hand, Mr. Shelby, and I’ll remove it from your wrist with your own blade. Free of charge.” The iron grip around her wrist loosened out of shock. She grabbed his arm and yanked him even closer, her fingers held fast by her pointed, blood-red nails buried deep in his pink flesh. His pulse beat as fast as her own did, in the heavy rhythm of a fluttering bird. Whores like her weren’t given respect; they had to demand it, snatch it back from a world that would break them otherwise.

A single tense minute passed, then two as she refused to be cowed by the fire that simmered under his heavy set brow and in the mouth flattened into a straight line. Just as his eyes turned murderous and John’s hand twitched for his peaked cap- 

The solid mass of Tommy’s chest and the faint scent of his cologne moved between them. “John, enough. Outside.” She figured her survival instincts ran off a few minutes ago only to return with a vengeance right that instant, solely to bead anxious sweat down her spine. Ah, here was the face of a predator the moment it locked its jaws around prey. “For somethin’ like what you jus’ did, love, I’ve beat men twice your size bloody.” He was testing her. The unspoken words were clear; tread carefully, or his Shelby temper would blow like a landmine. There was something more in the peering way he regarded her, more than a warning. How interesting was it that two spots of color migrated high on those marble cheeks and his heart seemed to beat out of his chest. His lips parted unconsciously. Predators always regarded their prey with the deep hunger that seemed to emanate from his stance… was it possible she’d impressed him? Fascinating.

Oh, these fucking blokes hadn’t a clue of what she was capable of, what she noticed, the chinks in their armor she could claw at. Tommy might be a landmine, but she only did collateral damage. “I’m not exactly a man, am I? And you won’t do that.” The abandoned task of wrapping up their suits was resumed. Cuifen would have told her it was smarter to back down, to kowtow and let him walk over her. Lupe was paid to do that, after all. He, however, had a talent of getting under her skin and heating her blood.

It seemed she had impressed him after all. “Why’s that?” His voice deepened more in the manner of a lover’s than someone who’d gut her throat to belly. The two were often the same.

“You love things that are wild and dangerous, Mr. Shelby. You play with fire, broken glass, live ammunition. And that’s why you’ll let me be, if only for the thrill of knowing that the day you beat me bloody is the day I’ll take your trachea out with me.” Her mouth stretched thin as the blade of a knife in a facsimile of a smirk. He looked like he might kiss her then thought better of it. That smart man thought rightfully so. She herself wasn’t sure if she’d let him or savage his lip between her teeth until it bled. Live wire pricked her nerves. Lupe accused him of playing with fire and here she was, playing with lightning. From where she’d daintily dug the tips of her nails into his carotid artery during her little speech, she could feel the blood flowing faster under her fingertips, could see him shift his stance like there was something uncomfortable in his… lower extremities.

Tommy stood there for a moment in stunned silence before pulling away as if she’d branded him. A deep breath to fortify him and an elegant sweep of the paper-wrapped package into his broad arms later, he tipped his razor-lined cap without ever breaking eye-contact. “Ms. Zhang, we’ll see about that. Good day.” With that, he took his leave, a gift of one last smoldering gaze following behind him.

“Good day.” Lupe hardly moved at all. She just watched him go, the nauseating anxiety of exactly what she'd just done keeping her at a standstill. Five minutes later Xiaoyu wandered in from their room, chattering on and on about the latest gossip from Limehouse. When she didn’t react, just stared at the door he’d disappeared out of like Lupe hadn’t even heard Xiaoyu’s chirping, she reached over and checked what her brothel-sister had been doing previously, neatly spotting the receipt on the counter next to the pounds and the tags that previously belonged to the suits. No one could have missed Xiaoyu’s high pitched shriek. It nearly pierced the eardrums of everyone within the building.

“ _Sister, what the fuck did you do?_ ” The sound was enough to jolt Lupe from her determined thousand-yard stare. Cuifen ran in from the dining hall as if summoned by the racket, bringing Shulan with her. She’d been all bite earlier but faced down by her sisters she was only bark.

“ _Why do you always think I did something?_ ” It took ounces of restraint to keep her from stomping off to their room and shutting the door as tight as she could. Christ, they could always figure out how to embarrass her. Lupe moved hastily away from them, a neat tuck of her chin allowing her to avoid their mocking smirks.

“ _Because you were just-_ ” From the corner of her eye she could see Cuifen open her mouth, about to cut in, certainly with the intent to rake her over the proverbial coals. Xiaoyu kept on with her rant, punctuated by the occasional giggle, her hands emphatically waving around that damned tag with the Shelby name in Liangliang’s lazy calligraphy.

The combined pressure was enough to make her snap at them. “ _Of course I didn’t do anything! Stop looking at me like that!_ ” Their collective laughter finally chased Guadalupe out of the room and off to quiet, unoccupied safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Yihetuan Uprising refers to the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, which Lupe, though she would've been born during this era, would definitely have heard about. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion
> 
> Birmingham in the late 1800s and early 1900s, during and post Industrial Revolution, was very famous for their manufacturing, notably their manufacturing of pen nibs. See here: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-diferences-between-London-and-Birmingham  
> https://www.rhnuttall.co.uk/blog/birminghams-manufacturing-history/
> 
> During the first season of the show Tommy & co wear outdated, plain grey woolen suits with some Edwardian coats. They're working class boys from Birmingham, so they don't quite have the full suave suits of the a la mode 1920s gentlemen they are in the later seasons. See here: https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/peaky-blinders-outfit-costume/
> 
> The Rugby Football Union was formed in 1871 - by 1919, it's entirely plausible that Lupe & others would know about rugby and rugby players. See here: https://www.exiles.dk/cms/ShowContentPage.aspx?ContentPageID=15
> 
> Lupe's nail shape and varnish here is creative liberty. While manicures and first, initial nail polish available to the public to purchase date to the late 1800s, the nail lacquer that we recognize today (and was popular with flappers of the time) was invented in the 1920s and perfected by 1932, where it was sold widely under the newly formed company Revlon. However, the drama of a good blood red manicure was too much to resist. Please forgive this slight inaccuracy. See here: https://www.byrdie.com/history-of-nail-polish


	4. Nightcall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something about you... it's hard to explain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Sorry for the extremely delayed update. Hopefully, the next one won't take as long.

**Holy Family Parish, Small Heath, June 1919**

* * *

“So you’re Tommy’s bird.” That harsh, low, womanly voice pulled Lupe away from her rosary and the Hail Mary’s she’d been muttering under her breath. Polly Gray stood in front of her with black lace draped over her bound hair, hands on her hips and fury simmering beneath her gaze. Perhaps it was a Shelby trait.

It appeared there was no removing herself from this conversation Lupe had no desire to perpetuate. She abandoned her prayers and tucked the rosary neatly into the band of her navy skirts. “I’m no man’s bird.” There was something about Polly that put her on edge, made her shift in the carved pews like a chastised child. The older woman’s face was set in a mask reminiscent of the woman who’d beaten Lupe and the other girls when they stepped out of line, on that long, terrible journey to England.

“Fancy finding you here. I wasn’t aware that any of you people had ever stepped inside a church.” Lupe figured Polly’s sneer could be seen clear all the way to London. Would it be better to avoid provoking her? Maybe, but after the events of yesterday with John, Guadalupe had very little patience left for any upstart Shelbys’ with cat piss in their tea. The urge to fight, to claw and scratch and scream at someone, anyone, bloomed up her spine and heated her cheeks.

Lupe would never disrespect the saviour by slapping someone in one of his houses, however. Adopting her own mask of tremulous, blatantly false innocence, she retorted. “Our Lady the Magdelene would happily welcome her sisters into the loving bosom of Jesus Christ.” Oh, she knew perfectly well who Polly was referring to when she said “you people”. The accusation and judgment in those pursed lips… she could see where John got the attitude from. It would be best for her to extract herself before she pissed Tommy’s aunt off too much and found a pig’s head in her bed. She gently pressed the covers of the bible she’d brought with her from Shanghai together before extracting herself from the carved pew. “My name is Guadalupe Zhang. It’s been a pleasure, Miss...?” Guadalupe never professed to be a saint, and sometimes the temptation to rile someone up grew too strong to resist. Temptations were why she went to Mass every week, after all.

Ms. Gray sought the last word with a curt acknowledgment. “Careful there, lass.” With the way her luck was turning Lupe would run into Tommy’s older brother and littlest sister too, with the way these fucking Peaky Blinders kept popping out of the woodwork.

* * *

**Chinese Quarters, Birmingham, June 1919**

* * *

After he’d taken his pleasure, Tommy always lingered behind. She hadn’t a clue why and figured it was one of the many things that made him the most unique man Lupe had ever entertained. She could feel his icy stare as it traced the movement of her fingers weaving her tangled black hair into a plait. A gaze like that made her feel like he was peeling her skin back and peering at her insides with clinical fascination. “Polly says she ran into you at church this morn.” Ah, she was waiting for him to inquire about that particular incident. Her head turned to look at him, propped up next to her in bed with linen covers bunched around his scar-marked bare torso.

The truth would be the right answer, she could see it in his face. Nodding, Lupe spoke. “Aye, I was there. I was pleased to make her acquaintance.”

“A church?” The incredulous edge that bled into his voice roused her temper, so on edge, once more.

“Is that so unbelievable? That I might wish to bask in the light of the savior?” Maybe it was how she had to defend herself against his aunt, maybe it was how he made her lower her boundaries, get attached, get riled up. Maybe it was the way he saw through the tricks and saw the person she was under the paint and the snide remarks. Maybe it was the way he saw her as his equal, which made Lupe want to tell him everything.

He could read her like an open book. Those hands which had done so much to her an hour ago raised to brush tenderly against her cheek. “I meant no offense, Guadalupe. I’ve only been as far as No Man’s Land in France. I didn’t know God’s lands extended to China.” Such tenderness… he moved as if she’d shriek and push him away at the slightest trace of sincere affection. Was Tommy so starved? That beautiful man nearly flinched when she brought her own hand up, only to relax when all she did was brush a stray, sweat-damp curl off his jaw and tuck it behind the shell of his ear. Blue eyes met brown, and she couldn’t help the feeling he was baring his soul to her, in some way he had never done before.

Guadalupe had never felt close to anyone in her life like she felt close to him. If what she was about to do was a mistake, she was prepared to face the consequences. “They don’t. Not really-” Her voice trailed off for a moment, hesitating to give him the chance to end this moment. “My father is a sailor. Or was. I’ve no bloody clue where he is now. You ever heard of the Spanish East Indies? An East Indies man in Shanghai, by way of the American Navy. That’s all my mother ever told me of him. She worked an opium den out there, turning tricks. One thing led to another… He didn’t stay for long, but he did have me baptized. I haven’t missed a day of church since, except when they uh… they brought me here. It almost sounds like a practical joke, doesn’t it? The man who made me left me behind, yet I cling to everything he left me. God forgive me.” She laughed at herself, at the foolish little girl she still was inside who dreamed of a family that wouldn’t treat her as her real one had.

Tommy moved quickly out of bed to come to sit at her side. The gentleness in his face was so bright it was almost unbearable to look at. “If it is a joke, it’s not very funny to me.”

Most surely he could read the relief written plain across her own, she thought. That must be it. There could be no other reason why he would- She cut her own thoughts off. “Guadalupe Zhang. That’s what he named me. I can’t help but think every night that the path I’m on… he would be ashamed of it.”

The silence hung heavy between them until he broke it. “My dad left too. First, it was petty thievery, and the constables keeping him overnight at the station. Then it was drinking, the opium, the birds he spent all day and night with. Every time he left he wouldn’t come back for longer. Until one night he never came back at all.” It was her turn now to comfort her. Lupe tucked her arms around the broad plains of his body and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. It took him a moment, a moment in which she was terrified he would push her away, but he returned the embrace. She marveled at the pace his pulse was beating beneath her hands. Like he’d just ran all the way to London and back. He cleared his throat. “How’d you end up here?”  
  
Ah, she couldn’t hold back her giggle at his obvious parry. The answering smile on his face was glorious, even enchanting. Lupe hoped to make him smile more. “On a boat, what’d you think? However, that’s a story for another night. I just told you most of my sordid past. Now you owe me, Tommy.” Could he hear the meaning she hid beneath her flirty teasing? The way Lupe begged him to offer himself up to her in the same manner she had?  
  
Tommy did. The same vulnerability that entered him earlier, when he’d caressed her cheek, washed over the man again. His jaw came alight with tension and she found the way he picked at his nails in anxiety almost charming. “Every night, I dream. I have these dreams that- that convince me I’m not home. That I never came home. I swear I left a piece of my life back there, buried with the bodies in the tunnels we dug. I see him. Just a boy. Not much older than Johnny. He might’ve shot me dead, and I promise you sometimes I wish he would have, but he tripped. And I just looked down at him and he looked up at me. I smashed his fucking head in like an egg. Guadalupe, my soul is rotted through. I’m terrified it’s black as sin and it’ll never be clean again. The things I did- the boys I killed. In my mind’s eye, I see them die, over and over and over. Until the mildewed blood and bone from their bodies chokes me and I wake up, tearing at my throat.” He had struck her speechless. Lupe couldn’t pretend to know at all how he felt, what it was like to carry the weight of hundreds of dead souls on her back. Did what he did during the war matter? Maybe, but she was only a woman. Not a saint. She pressed herself to him firmer, trying her very best to show him, prove to him he had come back. The way she did the first time she’d met him. No one had ever trusted her with anything precious in the way he had. She would kill for trust like that. Lupe would die before she betrayed it. Her forehead pressed against his, forcing his eyes to look back at her. You’re here, she told him in her mind. Come back to me. All will be well, sweet boy. He could tell exactly what she wouldn’t say and melted into her arms.

“Oh Thomas… I’m happy you’re alive.” She pressed her mouth against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy Family Parish is a real Catholic church in Small Heath, founded in the 1920s! See here: https://www.holyfamilyparishbirmingham.co.uk/about
> 
> Mary Magdalene, Jesus's most faithful apostle, is said to have been a prostitute. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene
> 
> From the 1800s to 1901, the Philippines was under Spanish colonial control and known as part of the Spanish East Indies. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_East_Indies
> 
> The Yangtze Patrol was an American naval operation from 1854 to 1949 wherein American naval ships patrolled the Yangtze River and the ports along it, including Shanghai. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol
> 
> The children of American military fathers and Asian mothers have typically throughout history been left behind in China by their fathers, unable to claim US citizenship and stigmatized by the war and colonialism. While these children are most common in the Philippines, I took some creative liberties (which are likely not all that creative - it's entirely possible that American soldiers left children with prostitutes wherever they went). See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerasian


	5. The Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You say you got a girl...

**Chinese Quarters, September** **1919**

Her devilish man was making plans. Something rotten was brewing in Small Heath and she didn’t like it, not one bit. Tommy knew how to look at her and how to pitch his voice so she would melt and that was almost as discomforting as knowing he was after something. After buying them dinner, he buttered her up so imperceptibly it would have likely worked on anyone - except her. She knew him far too well to fall for it. Even knowing that didn’t stop her from telling him what he wanted; inane gossip about the other girls, who they saw, what they were like. A lesser woman would have been jealous. Her? Well, she was merely interested in seeing how his assuredly harebrained scheme played out.

Just interested.

Surprisingly, for someone as dreamy and romantic as Lupe, jealousy was a foreign emotion. One might think she would have swooned for the first employer that promised her the stars and the moon, and every single man after. However, the brothel had all but stamped it out in her; the price to share a client with another girl at the same time was a lucrative incentive.

Thomas Shelby was a man a girl could justifiably get jealous over.

He paid and tipped generously, made the act pleasurable enough while chasing his own peak, and wasn’t half-bad to look at. Lupe couldn’t deny it rankled her to have him asking after Huiyin and Xiaoyu, asking who they saw, what services they were known for. He was even more interested in hearing about little Mei, Zhang’s daughter, then he was in Lupe. A sharp change of pace from the last few times they had seen each other.

Mei had a… reputation in Birmingham, a reputation for certain things like reading tea leaves and telling you with unnerving accuracy when your horse would die. What use would Tommy, a man who barely set foot in a church except to induce others to sin, have for a slip of a girl like that?

“Does it matter, Guadalupe?” He’d said to her with an amused huff. Of course, it did. If she lost him out to another girl… There were countless others who’d arrived at the Quarters since she had. Skinnier, prettier, younger. Oh, she knew she wasn’t the only girl Tommy saw with any frequency but until that moment she’d managed a decent job at not thinking about the matter. Lupe changed the subject and the moment was forgotten by Tommy, but not by her.

It was this frustration that stewed deep inside of her that caused Cuifen to sit her down, two cups of green tea steaming between them. “ _Enough, Xiu Jia. I’ll not have any more immature tantrums out of you. I shouldn’t have to tell you this but you’re far too old for such antics.”_

Lupe was a grown woman of twenty. “ _I’m sorry Cuifen, what the fuck? How dare you?”_ Was this God’s punishment for losing her temper so frequently in recent days? There was something maddeningly smug about Cuifen’s demeanor as the madam calmly sipped at the hot tea as if her outburst proved something. It didn’t prove anything!

“ _I dare because he’s just a man. A white man at that. You seem to have forgotten yourself, bird. I let you have your freedom as long as it doesn’t mess with business. You and Thomas? Just business. Do your best to remember that this time. I won’t give you another warning.”_ The last time Cuifen slapped Lupe across the face had been years ago when she was younger and prone to acting out, but she seemed like to do it again now in the face of Lupe’s disrespect. Hot rage bled into her muscles and her nails bit wounds into the palms of her hands. There was nothing she would not do to get Cuifen to shut up-

She’d forgotten one very important thing; to the Gang, she wasn’t even a person. Tommy reminded her what it was to be human, but such luxuries were only granted to people who weren’t whores. As long as anyone so much as knew Lupe sold herself for money, Cuifen and the Green Gang would keep her leashed like a dog in the street. “ _I’m sorry. I forgot myself. Mr. Shelby and I are just business.”_

“ _Good girl_.” The older woman across the table took her tea with her as she left, leaving that lone, pointed comment hanging behind her. Guadalupe was typically capable of seeing the benefits of her life, herself, her profession and the people around her. She felt at that moment the immense drawback of feeling so deeply for someone, the drawback of being capable of feeling that attached to anyone at all.

* * *

The ruckus next morning woke her just in time to see Tommy Shelby, perched like a warrior of old on a ridiculously massive white stallion, trotting to a halt in the main courtyard of the Quarters. He looked as dashing as the Devil and twice as dangerous, with fresh razors flashing through the threadbare fabric of his peaked cap. The sun, which was permanently obscured with industrial smoke, deepened the hollows beneath his cheekbones into a skeletal false smile. Mr. Zhang dragged Mei out by the arm, the poor girl clutching a pouch of white powder with a death grip, her brown eyes wide with terror at the fearsome sight in front of her. A few words and some coins later and Mei blew powder straight into the face of the stallion which nearly reared up and kicked her in the face. She fled almost the second her father released his hold on her arm.

Lupe knew Tommy saw her, saw the white robe she’d wrapped herself in. He turned the great beast around without another word nor a glance her direction and left the way he came.

The slight rankled her. Xiaoyu linked a slender arm with her own curvier arm, chattering away in her ear about that horse and what spell Mei put on it and what was in that powder. Lupe was far too busy sulking and cursing Tommy under her breath to pay her much mind. The sight of Zhang and Cuifen, having a harsh, whispered argument silenced Xiaoyu abruptly and stopped the girls in their tracks. They moved to tuck themselves behind a nearby brick wall, out of sight but close enough to overhear the conversation. 

She peeked around the corner so Lupe could just barely see them. “ _We’re going to go under, Zhang, if we don’t do something. Anything else.”_ The madam’s face was a study in urgency. Her hands worried at each other, wringing frantically with the same tension in her voice. What were they talking about? Go under? They saw more clients than ever now that they had established regulars.

While she could only see Zhang’s back, his shoulders stiff and guarded, his whispered voice sounded as clear as if he were next to them. _“What can we do? There’ll be policemen crawling every inch of this fucking city. Kill the opium. Now.”_ The real profit of their brothel was opium. Come for the girls, stay for the prime quality imported Chinese opium and the laudanum in unregulated doses. Out in Birmingham, they had no competitors and plenty of demand. Lupe herself had sold Tommy bricks aplenty...

Xiaoyu, her curious, flighty, childish brothel-sister reached out and clutched her hand, fear tightening the younger girl’s grip. _“And let the brothel die? Go back on our contract with the Gang? We’ll be lucky if they let us escape Birmingham alive.”_ Cuifen spat back as she flipped through the ledger book in her palms, pointing at unintelligible characters as if to prove her point. The Green Gang had always kept them in stock of food and customers; she’d lived through plenty of lean times but nothing as dire as the two people in front of her made it seem. They were alone out here and surrounded by unfriendly faces who wished to either use them or chase them out. Without business, without help, and with some brand new copper watching their every move, come autumn they would starve. The girl at her side tugged at her hand.

“ _Let’s go, Xiujia. Please? I want to go-”_ Xiaoyu spoke, a sob building in her voice. What could Lupe say? How could she begin to comfort her when she didn’t know how to comfort herself? With a nod, she led the smaller girl back to the laundry. Xiaoyu was so young; only sixteen. She was too little to remember the year they lived off congee when they weren’t allowed to leave Chinatown at all, not even to buy meat or fresh vegetables. When filth ran in their London streets and coppers beat anyone who tried to escape. When their sailors and maids were turned away at the docks and fancy mansions. Things would never be different, and it was foolish to have ever hoped they would.

 _“Little sister, all will be well. We’ll find a way to keep going. We always have.”_ Lupe soothed. Now wasn’t the time to frighten the other girl with talk of what was to come. They hurried back towards the laundry, feet flying like birds.

A smile forced its way onto Xiaoyu’s face. If there was anything that would distract her, it would be gossip. _“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Come on, big sister, what do you think that regular of yours was doing here?”_ Tommy. What was he doing there this morning? What did he want? What was he involving them all in? That man would damn them all, involving them in his schemes. Her sister’s eyes practically begged Lupe to respond, so she hurried to speak.

 _“Probably something with that horse and some bet-”_ The horse. The bet. That’s what he was fucking doing. The spell. An enchantment on the horse to throw the bookies at the race tracks. That fucking man. She cursed him with all the fervor she was capable of managing. God set a devil to walk the Earth when he made Tommy Shelby, Lupe was positive. Everyone knew Billy Kimber ran the books at the racetrack with an iron grip and a loaded gun. She didn’t know exactly what Tommy was up to, what he thought he’d get by bucking Kimber’s authority, but Tommy was always more hellion than good Catholic boy. If he placed them in the middle of a war with the Kimber boys… They would all die for his folly. The next time she saw him, Lupe swore she’d tear three strips out of his back.

* * *

**Weeks later, 1919**

There was no next time. After the horrible, awful day, when the opium dried up and that horse lost the race Tommy had tried to push it to win, he never came back.

She waited, she rejected every man who made eyes at her, but Tommy never darkened her doorstep in the following weeks. He’d abandoned her when it suited him and his plots. Guadalupe was a fool to have thought he’d somehow be different. Some sweet pillow talk and he was hers forever? She scoffed at herself, tears welling up in her eyes. Her fingers nimbly swiped them away before the damp could ruin her kohl. The feeling of abandonment magnified tenfold and threatened to swallow her whole. Just like her father, her mother, everyone. Everyone left in the end. Tommy hadn’t even promised to stay, and like the idiot she was, she hoped he would.

He didn’t even come back to say goodbye.

If Tommy wasn’t going to see her, she’d go to him. She deserved it. Lupe pulled the shawl around her shoulders tighter, as if by doing so she could ward off the spiral her mind swept away in, a spiral of loneliness and devastation. She moved quickly through the streets of Small Heath. Determination drove her feet, even when her mind was lost and wandering. Everyone knew the Peaky Blinders frequented the Garrison and only the men who worked in their factories drank there. With a small ounce of luck, she would be able to find someone who knew where Tommy was haunting. With a lot more luck, she might find Tommy himself.

The Garrison loomed just around the corner, the awning reflecting hints of the afternoon sun. It was quiet now for a pub. That should’ve been a warning, but Lupe always disregarded danger. She hurried towards the doorstep. There, with her hand about to press the mottled glass door open and with a view of Tommy sitting alone through the window, she heard it.

A voice. A woman’s voice. Singing like an angel, walking this mortal plane. Guadalupe moved away from the door so she could press her face against the window with her body tucked well out of sight.

The woman was beautiful. Beautiful in a way Lupe could never be. Sunshine blonde curls and a soft, sweet, peaches and cream complexion. A serenity in her face that could rival the Virgin Mary. Incandescent

And Tommy…

Tommy was transfixed by the English Rose in front of him. In that instant, Lupe knew why he hadn’t come to see her. How could she ever compete with that?

To feel so deeply for someone and watch them feel for someone else... She’d rather never feel at all. All Lupe ever wanted was for someone to stay. Instead, she had to watch him leave and stay for someone else.

She'd lost him. Cuifen was right. It was all just business. Tears ran down her face as she turned and fled back towards the Quarters, and the woman in the Garrison kept singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While there were no Chinatown riots in London in this time period, race riots were becoming common across the world, especially in America, during this time period. I embellished for dramatic effect.


	6. Be Your Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiss me with a fist, it's alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not super proud of this chapter but I figured I needed to post something. Plus, it advances the plot. Hope you guys like it! Please leave a review and tell me what you think, they inspire me to write faster.

Why?

Why did she care so much?

Perhaps Cuifen sensed something was wrong, for when Lupe returned to the laundry she was met with a bottle of whiskey and a glass tucked away on a corner table for privacy. She happily took the madame up on her offer and spent the rest of the night in alcohol-induced contemplation, for once not pressured into working.

That woman, whoever she was, seemed half an angel sent from heaven. Tommy must have grown tired of living in sin, Guadalupe mused. If she was honest with herself, there was always going to be someone better out there for him. Someone kinder, prettier, more devout, with light hair and light eyes. A body not carved from scar tissue and tragedy. Virginal and pure. Who spoke the right kind of English and could produce good English babies. That someone would never be Lupe. She wasn’t enough for her father to stay, to protect her from her mother. She wasn’t good enough for her mother to keep her with her in Shanghai. The only time anyone looked at her twice was when she spread her legs. Who wouldn’t be ashamed of a woman like her? Glass after glass of whiskey burned down her throat. Giddiness fogged up her brain and she found herself laughing, at her pathetic self, at Tommy, at the stupid men who lined up to get their cocks wet and the stupid girls who’d do anything for a coin.

Moping was hardly her style. With that thought in mind, she pulled herself away from the empty liquor bottle. Tommy, no, Thomas had made no promises and she was no fool.

A line of cocaine later and Lupe felt like she could swallow the world whole.

Cocaine was a funny drug that did funny things to her nerves. Oh, she tried to stay away from its’ siren call, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The moment it went up her nose all her sadness poured right out of her and was replaced with unadulterated euphoria. The awful hollow in her stomach that had remained since she saw Tommy and his little songbird filled right up with vitality and a peculiar sense of power. Almost against her will, the depressed stupor she stuck herself in lifted. What would it be like to feel this way all the time? To never have to feel another loss, another abandonment, instead only joy and warmth, only belonging?

She had half a mind to find out.

That night, Lupe painted kohl around her eyes like armor, picked out the thinnest wisp of silk to wear, and dove into the brothel’s fray like a knight going into battle. Man after man passed through her sheets, white line after white line disappeared up her nose. She was removed from all of it. Lupe did not feel a single thing. For a woman who always felt too much, too much pain, too much sadness, this was a welcome change of pace. As long as she kept feeling this odd, woozy, disconnected joy, Guadalupe was happy. Perhaps she could never have Mr. Shelby, but that was alright, wasn’t it?

Of course, the thrice-damned Shelby family could hardly allow her a moment of peace.

She woke up the next morning with a vicious headache and a raw throat in the filthiest sheets she had ever seen. The rough linen was quickly gathered up and packed off to the laundry, where Meihua, who was on washing duty that day, pulled them out of Lupe’s hands with a giggle at all the activity that happened on them.

Fuck, her nose ached. In a grimy mirror, she spotted a speck of dried blood above her lip and rubbed it away before anyone else could see.

The madame quickly shepherded Guadalupe and the rest of the girls towards the bath, as she always did, pressing hard chunks of brown lye soap into their hands. One by one they scrubbed themselves clean of the brutal night before. Once they were all as free of grime as could be managed, the madame sent them all out on their respective errands for the day.

Not a moment passed after Lupe stepped out of the brothel before she was accosted by another Shelby. This time, it appeared Ada Shelby, the youngest, desired to make her acquaintance.

“I need your help.” Desperation was written across the poor girl’s face, her large brown eyes accentuated by the large hollows underneath them. Her thin lips were bitten raw, from anxiety or habit Lupe could not tell. Ada’s fingers twisted the worn sleeves of her coat with hypnotic rhythm.

She took pity on the girl. “What exactly is it that I can help you with, Miss Shelby?” Her voice was as friendly as Lupe could make it. The lass was clearly in a state. Did something happen? Lupe unconsciously straightened her blouse and smoothed out her skirt in nervous anticipation. Cocaine always made her feel like this the morning after, nerves raw and prone to hysterics.

Ada leaned in closer as if she feared someone else hearing what she had to say. “I… am in a predicament. It is said you and your kind can help me get out of it. I’m in the family way.” Ah, there it was. A child in the belly was hardly an uncommon sight in a brothel. Her establishment was not an exception to this rule. As a result, they had to have on hand cures for such ailments that could put a good whore out of work for seven or eight months, perhaps longer if she wanted to keep the child. Such a situation would not be tolerated. They always kept in plentiful stock dried tansy for tea, to prevent pregnancy or induce a miscarriage. Lupe even happened to know where it was. She’d never needed to use it, thanks be to God, but Xiaoyu had.

Regardless of how she felt towards Ada’s brothers, a woman in need was a woman in need. Lupe knew girls like them had precious few allies and could use all the help they could get. She’d even ignore that comment about “your kind”, no doubt their Aunt Polly’s influence. “Worry not. I’ll help you, free of charge. Mind you, don’t let your brothers know where you got it from or they’ll have my head.” She moved with haste as she spoke, tucking Ada’s hand underneath her elbow and rushing her through the back entrance, where they hauled soap in for the laundry. Hardly anyone was there.

All the girls had already scattered for their chores, and Cuifen was tucked in her office, tallying earnings from the previous night. “Now remember, tansy only works if you’ve been pregnant for a short time, perhaps a few weeks. Beyond that, there’s no guarantee of success.” Guadalupe cautioned. “Wait here.” She left Ada at the door to the kitchens and ducked inside. Atop the lit stoves bubbled fresh congee, available for anyone who wanted something to eat outside of mealtimes. Urgency informed her movements. The longer Ada stayed within the Quarters, the higher the chance someone could see her. This was a possibility that could not come to pass. It would bring on all sorts of questions from the Blinders, inquiring exactly what their precious princess was doing in a rival’s territory.

The girl in question looked on the verge of tears, pale with a trembling mouth. She felt the drive to protect her, shield Ada a little longer from the cruelties of the world. Naivety was a precious commodity and it seemed like she had it in spades.

Glistening wooden cabinets lined the walls of the kitchen, filled with all sorts of spices and seeds. Star anise, five-spice powder, deep crimson chilies. The hallway was dimly lit with lanterns and persistently smelled of cooking grease and garlic. The cabinet within which medicinal herbs could be found lay in the farthest corner. Pennyroyal, tansy, chamomile, ginseng, and licorice all found a home there. Lupe filled a few small tea sachets with tansy to the brim, then offered them to Ada. “Brew one of these with a single cup of boiling water, and drink the concoction twice a day. Be careful; if you start bleeding excessively you must see a doctor immediately. Do you understand?”

The girl’s chestnut brown curls bounced around her heart-shaped face as she nodded. “I do.” Ada’s fingers snatched the packets from Lupe’s grip and tucked them quickly into her pale coat. “Thank you. I mean it. Promise you won’t tell?”

“Promise. Run along now, quickly.” Ada didn’t need to be told twice. She scurried off and away, disappearing like a fairy around the corner in the weak sunlight. Guadalupe wished her well in her heart and sent out a quiet prayer that the babe in the girl’s stomach would go on to Heaven.

A scream, sharp and urgent, rand through the halls. Someone had started screaming. Glass shattered next, then pleas for help echoed from the front of the building. What was happening? Between the ache in her head and her muscles, and the sneaking she just did for Ada Shelby, it seemed like this day would never end. She closed up the cabinet doors as fast as she could, promptly hurrying towards the commotion.

Xiaoyu suddenly appeared practically out of thin air, sprinting from her chamber and collapsing straight into Lupe. Her face was a study in horror, her eyes filled with tears. “ _ Run! Xiujia, please, run. Go, you need to go right now- _ ” She steadied the distraught woman, digging her fingers into her shoulders to keep her from fleeing before someone could explain what was going on.

“ _ Tell me what’s happening! What’s wrong?” _ Lupe commanded. The words that poured out of Xiaoyu’s mouth chilled her to the bone.

“ _ Police. They’re here. They’re rounding everyone up. Cuifen has already been carted away. You need to go, you can’t be caught, we have to flee. Please, come with me.” _ Terror shot up her spine. Police. That could only mean one thing. Mr. Zhang’s fears came true. Every single one of them would be hunted down like beasts and sent to rot in a jail cell. If they were lucky, they’d only be deported with the clothes on their backs, left at the mercy of the Green Gang back home. If they weren’t lucky, they’d be sent to prison for the rest of their lives. Both options were the stuff of nightmares. The life she’d built, the friends she had, even Tommy… All of it gone in an instant. They both knew what kind of treatment they faced at the hands of ruthless coppers; beatings, gropings, rapes, murder if they weren’t lucky. The old scars running up and down her back and legs tingled at the thought of a repeat experience. Bruised knees from kneeling on shit-stained cobblestones, bruises blooming on their cheeks from a backhand, wrists rubbed raw from the handcuffs. It would take a miracle from God himself to see them through this.

Guadalupe steeled herself. Her English was the best of all the girls. What kind of monster would she be if she abandoned everyone else and ran in their time of need? Without Cuifen, the prostitutes would be lost and even more vulnerable to the whims of men who hated their very existence, who wouldn’t hesitate to beat them to a bloody pulp then charge the girls for getting blood on their uniforms. That’s how Chenguang died, choking on her own blood.

The memory of the woman who’d been like an older sister to her strengthened Lupe’s resolve. She pulled the shawl from her shoulders and cast it over Xiaoyu’s small head, tucking the knitted cloth around the girl’s round face to shield her from anyone who might look twice on the street. “ _ Go. I’ll be just fine. Someone needs to stay with the rest of the girls. You go, run, and hide. When it’s all over, go to Small Heath. Find Tommy Shelby. Tell him what happened. _ ” With those parting words, she stepped away from her sobbing little sister and ran towards the front entrance, closer and closer to the horrible sounds her sisters were making.

She stepped out into the sunlight.


	7. Gangsta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I need a gangster, to love me better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the tags to reflect some new things in this chapter. Trigger warning: discussion of self harm, self harm scars, violence against women. Graphic description of said violence.

Lupe could feel bruises purpling on her arms where the coppers grabbed her and tossed her to the ground. They barked orders in harsh English, coordinating the kettling of her fellow sisters into covered wagons with steel bracelets on the girls’ wrists.   
Facedown in the muck, she couldn’t help but question the wisdom of her decision to run straight into the face of imminent danger. Who knew if Xiaoyu would make it to Small Heath without being kettled herself? Would Tommy help them? Would he even care?

“Get up, chink slut.” The police spat at her, spittle peppering her dark hair. Lupe’s shoulders ached something fierce from being yanked upwards by her handcuffs. Holding back tears, she struggled against the hold on her wrists to try and get to her feet. “Resisting arrest? We’ll have you mailed back to where you came from for that.”

Hot fury bubbled within Lupe. “I’d like to see you try.” She responded acridly, biting back curses and promises of eternal revenge on her captors’ souls. Oh, how desperately she wanted to smack them across the face and push their porky snouts into the Birmingham muck. Lupe could feel the cuffs opening cuts in her wrists, blood and sweat slicking her hands and collecting under her fingernails. A dirty hand reached over her shoulder to grab at her throat, the vice-like grip choking the life out of her. Tears leaked out of her eyes as she fought desperately for every breath. All Lupe could hear was her pulse, pounding a marching beat in her head. For a single blessed moment, the vice grip on her throat loosened and she could think clearly enough to smirk at the inspector standing before her, the screams and struggles of her sisters echoing like valkyries descending on a battlefield. The inspector with his stupid mustache and a pompous, gleeful light in his eye promptly backhanded Lupe across the face, sending her keeled over to the side.

“It’s only polite to introduce myself. Inspector Campbell, at your service. I’d tell you to enjoy our hospitality, but you won’t be enjoying it much longer. I look forward to seeing you off back to Shanghai, little lady.” He mockingly bowed with a doff of his hat. She wanted to rip it off him and shove it down his throat so he would never address her again. Guadalupe struggled against the cuffs once, twice. Her slick fingers twitched in their steel grips, desperate to sink her nails into the inspector’s face and carve him a new smile.

Lupe bared her red-stained teeth at him in the mockery of a smile, the taste of iron heavy on her tongue. “Inspector Campbell, I kindly request you go to hell.” The man gripped her face with his gloved hand, that fucking smirk never leaving his lined face. At her words he dug in harder, forcing his fingers between her teeth like she was an unruly dog. On her knees, at the mercy of a stranger. Humiliation trickled through her veins. How dare he. How dare this scum bring her so low. She wanted to kill him, watch the life splutter out of his beady little eyes. She wanted to scrub her skin off with bleach to erase the memory of his touch.

Campbell’s Irish brogue echoed condescendingly in her ears. “My girl, I’m already here. Now, you’ll tell me what you know about Thomas Shelby or I’ll ask these kind gentlemen here to beat it out of you.” He was after Tommy. Like hell would she give a single thing up to this fucking inspector. One day, she swore to herself. One day she would grind this man to dust beneath her heel.

“No, you pig-faced lout. No.” She spat back at him, bloody spit decorating his fine suit. Tommy was an utter bastard to be sure, but he’d earned her loyalty just the same. In that moment, the past disappeared. All of it, the other woman and the silence on his end. As the inspector sent her reeling into the mud with another blow, all she thought about was Tommy and the gentle way he kissed her. The way he talked to her. Like she mattered to him. How he made her feel as if she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.

There was no other explanation for her behavior; she was in love. Lupe could see that now, as the coppers finally let off beating her black and blue and hauled her into the covered wagon. When Tommy touched her, he lit a fire in her soul, and Guadalupe would be damned before she saw any harm come to him on her account. He probably would never look at her like she looked at him, never love her as she loved him. But what he gave her was enough. The mere thought of Tommy brought a smile to her face and tore her busted lip open further, sending a dribble of blood down her chin. Her whole body ached; a few ribs were most certainly bruised. Not the first time she’d seen the wrong end of a white man’s fist, nor would it be the last. No matter what happened next, she wouldn’t be a snitch. Lupe wouldn’t be the girl who sacrificed other people on the altar of her own self-interest. She’d protect Tommy like she’d protect her sisters. By not saying a word.

They booked every girl they rounded up at the station, the coppers screaming at them in a language most of them could not understand. She did her best to translate, to keep the peace. Not a single girl was reassured by the sight of her purpled cheek and bloody mouth.

The holding cell was grimy and smelled of puke and piss. Her sisters huddled in groups, alternately whispering and crying amongst themselves. Shulan traced characters into the dirt coated wall of the cell;  _ home, family, happiness _ . Huiyin huddled up against Lupe, face pressed against her neck, soaking the cotton of her dress with tears. The other girl was petite compared to her, all small, delicate limbs and large, dark eyes. Huiyin still found joy in the color of wildflowers and the shape of clouds. She had no family left for her in Shanghai; a foundling left on the steps of a Green Gang gambling hall. Huiyin and the rest of her sisters would suffer the most if they were all deported. That could not come to pass.

Lupe could not find a single care for her own fate. Who would weep if a Chinese whore was beaten to death by a British copper? Who would mourn if, upon her return to Shanghai, an enforcer stabbed her and left her to bleed out in a back alley? Nobody would. Her life was worth nothing. She had no innocence to save, no grand hopes for the future, no loved ones to treasure. Guadalupe chuckled to herself quietly. That’s what this arrest had done to her, made her morose and melancholy before her time. The fight wasn’t over yet. At the very least, her sisters had to survive. They must. If Xiaoyu made it out of the Quarters there was a chance for them. Lupe was never one for gambling; she’d seen too many men dead over debts to risk her life for a bit of fun. This was the riskiest gamble she would ever take. A gamble on Thomas Shelby’s theoretical attachment to her. He must feel something. Why else would a man known not to frequent whores frequent her? For that sake, he might be able to save them all. Pull some strings, bribe the right people. The pragmatist in her pointed out it would be in his financial interest to help them. The Gang would owe him a favor and a favor was a powerful thing.

She could hope all she wanted he might feel as she felt about him, but hope was flimsy and prone to deserting people when they needed it most. Money and power made the world go ‘round.

Lupe touched her bloody wrists gently. If those wounds were to heal properly, without additional scarring, she would need gauze and clean water soon. The glares from the men guarding their holding cell did not reassure her that she’d get those in time to prevent infection. She was covered in enough scars; Lupe didn’t wish for more. Scars on her back and thighs from nights gone wrong. Scars on her palms from punishments. Scars lining her wrists that she’d done to herself. No one had ever seen the extent of the damage except for her. That was on purpose; Guadalupe always made sure the lanterns burned low and what could be powdered was powdered, in order to hide them. Her wrists would bear the marks of yet another incident. In a way, she was sick of it. Sick of a life that etched permanent damage into her body that she would never outrun.

But what other life was out there for her? What else would let her be free, free to make her own money and decide her own path?

Her attention returned to the present. There was no use mooning over such things when Lupe had more pressing issues to concern herself with. One by one, the police were dragging girls out of the holding cell. First, they took photographs, then they pressed their thin fingers into pads of ink and took their fingerprints. If they managed to avoid deportation today and ever got into any more trouble, they would certainly be deported then. Anonymity kept them safe, and they’d all just lost it. This new inspector seemed to want to “clean up the streets”; of course he’d start with the people who couldn’t fight back without getting themselves in trouble, she thought disdainfully. He prowled around the station like a peacock, as if proud of the terror he put them all through. What a wanker. The man thought he could break them. One day, Lupe would break him, she swore to herself. He was nothing more than a dog who needed to terrorize others to make himself feel good. Oh, she’d heard whispers about him. What he did to the Irish. What he wanted to do to the Communists. He might see her as nothing but a slag but she saw the truth of Inspector Campbell. A monster. A monster who left bodies in his wake and woke up every morning with a smile on his face because of it. 

She’d fucking kill him if it was the last thing Lupe did.

For Huiyin. For Xiaoyu. For the people he crushed beneath his polished shoe. Men like him looked the other way when girls who deserved better out of life were found murdered while claiming to be the hand of justice. She’d seen plenty of his type in London. He was the same bootlicking scum.

“Get up, Ms. Zhang.” Speak of the Devil. Lupe leveled her sharpest glare at the inspector, who looked as smug as the cat that caught the canary. “I would have words with you, my dear.” The endearment rankled. Disgust and humiliation crawled through her bones.

Lupe drew herself upright with the bearing of a queen. “Call me that again, Inspector, and I’ll have your balls cut off.” Her red lipstick must’ve smeared off by now, but she liked to think her smile still looked as dangerous as a throat slit open.

“Threatening an officer of the Crown? We’ll have that added onto your long, long list of charges, my dear.” Her eyes flashed dangerously, a promise of violence. Jesus counseled Christians to forgive, but she would never forgive him. Never.

Perhaps a change in tactics would upset him as he upset her. A saccharine expression settled across her features. “What can I help you with?” Lupe purred out. She pressed up against the bars of the cell to level her face with his. “Sir.” At her last word, a bright crimson flush spread up his neck. He rushed to clear his throat and step away from her. She snickered to herself at the frightened look in his beady eyes. Hadn’t the man ever met a woman who wanted something?

“You’d do well to back away from me, my dear. Now I’ll ask you again, what do you know about Thomas Shelby?” He’d asked her this question earlier. How… interesting. Of course, everyone in this town knew Mr. Shelby frequented the establishment where she worked. What did Inspector Campbell want? Oh, she thought he was after the Communists. Perhaps that was simply a smokescreen, to conceal his true intentions towards the Peaky Blinders. Lupe sighed internally. What the fuck kind of trouble did Tommy get her into now?

The man on the other side of the bars was playing a game. What game, she had no clue. For now, Lupe would play along. She’d never give up anything about Tommy. Never. But if Lupe could get her sisters out of these cells... “Oh, Inspector. Don’t you know? Everything is available. For a price.” She made him uncomfortable, made him adjust his pants. As long as she was able, she would use that to her advantage. Before he got the chance to respond, a detective pulled him away. She could hear them muttering to each other in low voices. The inspector protesting something.

Finally, the detective released his death grip on Campbell’s arm and moved towards their cell, keys in hand. Lupe had never seen him before and got the distinct impression he was choosing his words with the utmost care. “My apologies for this… unfortunate situation. You’re free to go.”

What?   
They were… free?

Hope rose again in her breast, in spite of the aching of her ribs, wrists, and head. The detective worked quickly to move them all out of the cell and out of the police station. As if the hounds of hell were after him. Campbell spluttered as the girls walked past him, stunned. “But… but-”

The other man shook his head. “Orders from up high, Inspector. Nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid.” Lupe spoke to every one of her sisters in rapid Chinese, moving them along as well. She didn’t know who to attribute this miracle to, but she’d take advantage of it before the detective changed his mind. Did Xiaoyu make it? Did Tommy really care for her after all? A true smile came to her face. Of course, Lupe was afraid. Afraid it was some other stroke of luck, afraid her hopes were once again misplaced. But this time, the feelings that swelled in her were impossible to stifle.

She all but ran out of the station.

There he stood, lit cigarette in his mouth. Waiting for her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be kettled/kettling describes the process of police corraling and arresting a group of people.  
> I have no idea what the arrest process was like in the late 1910's, so I'm basing this off my own experiences with the police. And of course, literary/creative license. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


	8. Take Me To Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> take me to church, i'll worship like a god at the shrine of your life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two updates in one day? inconcievable! jk, just wanted to post this. The culmination of all the sexual tension of the past chapters. This is my first sex scene EVER so please be kind and leave me a comment. Thanks.

There was something so achingly tender in the way he bandaged her wrists. It broke her heart. Tommy touched her like he was touching a crucifix; reverent and worshipful, with sorrow in his piercing blue eyes.

Mr. Zhang had been waiting right outside the police station. Tommy only gave her a few moments, his arm wrapped around her waist, to make sure the girls were safe with the boss before packing her without a word into his automobile. She settled against the buttery leather of the seat with a deep, bone-weary sigh. They’d been in that holding cell for hours. Lupe had lost track of time. It had been just before noon when they were taken away; now, the sun fell just below the skyline and lit the smokey Birmingham sky a brilliant crimson orange.

The man hadn’t said a word to her, simply enveloped her in a rough hug that brought tears to her eyes. She only truly relaxed for the first time that day enveloped in his arms, inhaling his scent, a perpetual mixture of musk and tobacco smoke. Tommy pulled away first, starting the automobile and driving with a death grip on the steering wheel that left his knuckles white and a frown etched into the marble facets of his face.

“Let that not happen again, love.” His voice was rough as if he’d spent the past half an hour shouting. Lupe gazed out the windshield, watching Birmingham go by. This felt like a dream; a nightmare turned into a daydream. She’d been rescued, like a princess in a fairytale. When did that happen to women like her? “Love”? When did he start calling her that?

His eyes were still fixed on the road as he reached out to wipe a smear of blood off her chin. “I’ll do my best, Tommy.” Lupe promised, her voice as hoarse as his, though from a different cause. The adrenaline that powered her out of the station and into his arms wore off swiftly, the pain of her ribs and wrists burning fiercely once more. She closed her eyes to the world around her and tipped her head back, her loose, grimy hair falling against the seat. His hand moved from her face to her hand, clutching it like a lifeline. Another word was not spoken between them for the rest of the ride. Just his hand on her and her mind too weary to contemplate the meaning behind the gesture.

If she had the strength Guadalupe would ask him what happened, question him frantically about what Xiaoyu said to him, and what price they would have to pay for his help. But all she wanted at that moment was to be a girl, holding hands with a boy. To pretend Lupe had not just had the shit beaten out of her by an inspector out for Tommy’s blood and almost been deported. He seemed to sense that desire and matched it.

They reached his townhouse a few minutes later. He parked his automobile in the carriage house, before helping her down from the car as a true gentleman would. “That inspector asked me about you.” She said softly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. Lupe was almost afraid of his answer. His grip on her arm tightened, and she looked at him in alarm.

A stormcloud furrowed his brow and Tommy looked ready for murder. Torture, at the bare minimum. A pang of primal fear, at that anger being potentially directed at her, ran through her before he noticed and calmed her down. “Don’t concern yourself with him. Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm?”

Tommy was so gentle, so tender. She could hardly believe this man led the dread Peaky Blinders. The Shelby townhouse was fortuitously empty, a strange occurrence it seemed by the hastily left behind tea and toast on the dining table. He led her upstairs as if she were a child, hand in his. Tommy seemed to enjoy caring for her, seemed to find some quiet pleasure in drawing her a bath and dressing her wounds with alcohol and gauze. The soft look that settled across his face as he dabbed warm water on her face to clean off the blood and dirt kept her from asking any questions. She emerged from the bathroom clean and fresh, the only signs of the events that had occurred the bruises on her body and the empty look in her eyes.

When tears ran down Lupe’s face, her mind suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the past 24 hours, he asked no questions. He seemed to simply understand and drew her delicately into his arms once more as if she were a piece of fine china.

She clutched his shirtwaist and sobbed into the rough cotton. Lupe couldn’t chase the inspector’s humiliating words away, the pain of his hand slapping her across the face, the sheer terror of being unable to save the girls she saw as her sisters. So she cried out the feelings into the crook of his neck, pressing her face against his sharp collarbone. His grip around her tightened. Lupe drew away from him as her sobs stopped, her wet black hair draped around her like a veil.

They gazed at each other for a moment, a pause filled with words unsaid and feelings unknown.

He kissed her. Softly at first, then harder, more passionately. This man kissed like he was in love. The calloused pads of his fingers traced reverently over her cheekbones, then her jaw, finally coming to rest in a gentle grip around her chin. Lupe pulled him flush against the curves of her body, breast to breast, heart to heart. She returned the kiss with as much fervor as him, taking control back from Tommy as she traced the shape of his plush lips with her tongue.

He lifted her up by the waist with his other hand, the muscles of his bicep bulging as he settled her gently into his lap. A single knee parted her thighs as she came to rest atop the hardness in his pants.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. He knew her body almost as well as she did. She nipped at his bottom lip, wringing a sweet, deep moan from Tommy. Lupe broke the kiss for a moment to rest her forehead against his. The stare he fixed her with felt like it plumbed the depths of her soul. God in Heaven, did she love this man.

His hand shifted from her chin, trailing down her neck with a feathery touch that sent shivers down her spine. He settled above her heart as if feeling the rapid flutter of her pulse with his fingers. Oh, Tommy was playing a dangerous game. He’d only ever loved her when he paid her. Now, they would love each other.

His mouth parted in surprise as she moved suddenly against him, taking control and grinding down into his lap. The friction was sweet, moving butterflies in her stomach. Lupe kissed him again, this time fiercely, her tongue battling against his for dominance. A wild look entered his eye and inflamed his movements; this was a man not used to being challenged. In a swift movement, he rolled her over and pinned her down against his bed. The flutter of his lips against her jaw, her neck, the exposed flesh of her breasts, was maddening. He nipped at the tan skin there, leaving red and purple marks blooming like violets against her skin.

“Tommy…” She moaned, the pain and pleasure of his mouth on her an intoxicating sensation. He paused for a moment to trace his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips.

“My sweet girl.” He chuckled softly at the dazed look in her eyes. “May I?” He asked, the roughness of his Birmingham accent contrasting with the gentleness in his voice. She loved him so wildly it surprised even her, this man who asked permission, unlike the men who came before him.

She smiled up at him, her dark eyes round with anticipation. “Of course.” Tommy tugged at the straps of her dress, sliding them down in her round shoulders. He undressed her with the same attention to detail he gave his work and she lifted her hips off the mattress to help him along. His eyes darkened at the black and blue bruises that marred her ribs, her knees, and her arms. He pressed his mouth ever so gently along each bruise, each cut. The warmth of his touch erased the lingering pains that plagued her from this awful day. Tommy’s arms bracketed her hips on the bed.

Lupe could feel wetness gathering between her legs at his ministrations, increased so by the way he looked as he worshipped her. Tousled black hair, the most appetizing flush crawling up his chest through his half-open shirt, black pupils dilated with arousal. The remnants of her dress bunched around her hips as she moved her thigh, rubbing up against his hardness in order to draw another moan out of his sinful mouth. With the way he tempted her, he was Lucifer and she Eve.

Tommy pushed her slip down to join her plain dress, drawing a single stiff nipple into his mouth. Her mind went nearly blank with pleasure and she moaned almost involuntarily. Such was his hold over her. “‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine...’” She recited to him, watching the erotic sight of him rolling one peak between his fingers and sucking at the other.

He paused for a moment to laugh, dark and promising of sin. “The Song of Solomon?”

“Ah, so you do know your Bible.” She turned the pause to her advantage, reaching down to unbutton his pants and grasp his firm cock in hand. As if compelled he ground his hips down against her hand, his mouth hanging open in pleasure. The gasp she drew from Tommy was as sweet and deep as honey.

Not content to let Lupe have the upper hand, he took control back swiftly by pulling her dress and slip off, leaving her in her stockings and drawers. With a single hand pressed above her head, he slipped the other between her thighs, stroking his clever fingers against the dampness of her drawers. She moaned, the heady pleasure building slowly in her belly. Tommy smiled against her skin at the sweet sound.

“You’re so good for me, love.” He murmured into her hair, pooled around her head like a halo. Lupe could hardly stand his teasing ministrations bringing her such rapture, such warmth. He found her sensitive clit with unerring accuracy through the soft fabric, stroking in the way Tommy knew she enjoyed. He brought his nimble fingers up to his plush mouth, sucking musk off of them with desire-dark eyes. That look alone sent waves of thrill through her. Those damp fingers were next put to work divesting her of her drawers. As she lay back, completely bare to him, Lupe couldn’t help but feel nervous. He’d seen her naked before, but never under so much light, never when she was so vulnerable and fragile. With a single word, he could break her. Somehow that alone was more terrifying than being naked beneath him.

He could sense her nervousness, she just knew it. Tommy always seemed to know more about her than she wanted him to. A single hand came to rest on her cheek, just for a moment, to reassure her. They shared a tender glance between them, one that felt secret and lasted an eternity. A glance filled with all the things they couldn’t say. Lupe knew the moment he saw the white scars that lined her body and felt a moment of terror that he would be disgusted at them, that he would push her away, reject her. Instead, a soft look came to his face as he kissed them, one by one, covering her thighs, her arms, her belly with gentle, loving touches.

It was over all too soon, and he positioned himself once more between her legs, lowering his face to her secret place that he desired. A single finger stroked her damp folds, joined soon by another. The sensation was feather-light and teasing, exploring. She slid back down onto the bed as he pressed two fingers into her, slowly fucking in and out of her cunt. The pleasure of stretching around him was almost too much, too good, and she keened almost involuntarily. Tommy splayed his other hand along her pelvis, holding her down as her body tried to move away from the insistent sensations. His thumb came to rest against her clit the way he knew she enjoyed, rubbing in slow circles that had her clenching against the fingers inside of Lupe.

“Please…” She moaned from her chest. Tommy obliged her, pulling his fingers from her. They dripped wet with slick.

He soon replaced his hand with his mouth, sucking and licking at her folds, drawing her clit into his mouth. 

The heat was almost unbearable, crawling up her spine. She wanted him to keep going, to handle her rougher, harder. Like Tommy could read her mind, he slid his fingers back inside of her, timing his hand with his thrusts with his mouth on her. Lupe could feel herself dripping against his mouth as they moved their bodies together in a dance older than time. Bit by bit, a wave swelled inside of her, gaining power with each second he spent pleasuring her, each moment he rocked against her cunt. Her legs, splayed out, began to quiver with the intensity of the thrill he awoke inside of her. She pressed herself up into his touches, desperately trying to chase the pleasure that racked up and down her spine. His fingers moved faster, fucking her in time to her heartbeat.

Just as she was about to come, he pulled away to watch her chest heaving with breaths and her cunt, red and swollen and dripping wet. Lupe whined in complaint.

His mouth, shiny with her wetness, smirked. “Have patience, my girl.” Tommy dove back into her at once; his hand pushing into her cunt with three fingers. The sweet stretch forced a shriek out of her throat, her head thrown back as she moved her hips in synch with him.

His fingers were so much larger than hers, his tall frame covering her body as he pressed up against her, fucking her harder and harder.

He was driving her crazy, she thought hazily through the pleasure. The sensations built in a crescendo, moving through her belly fierce and unstoppable. Tommy knew, knew what was coming, could feel her clenching further and further around his nimble fingers. 

Tommy would be her undoing.

He looked half an angel, half a devil as he bore down on her. 

That mouth, sculpted for pleasure, returned to her cunt, sucking and licking her towards her peak. Lupe felt herself move, felt herself come closer against his mouth, her mind going blank with sensation. Her legs quivered as he kept sucking, kept moving, and brought her over the edge.

It felt like falling. Like flying.

Tommy had to press her down to keep her from jolting away from his touch.

When she settled back to Earth, he was still stroking her folds with his tongue, gently tracing shapes and lapping her through her orgasm. Exhaustion flooded through Lupe as she went boneless against the mattress.

“Sleep, love.” He murmured in her ear. She closed her eyes.


	9. Vices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> making a fool of myself, with all these vices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright kids, hope you enjoyed those last two chapters cuz we're about to board the angst train. Sorry for the late update, a lot of shit happened in my life. I'm back on track now. Enjoy!

To wake up alone in a foreign bed was as disorienting as it sounded like. Footsteps echoed from the stairwell next to the room and she pulled the sheets tighter around her in a moment of reflexive anxiety and vulnerability as her hair shifted on the pillows like pooled black ink. Her wrists and cheek still ached, the deep purple bruises turned a sickly green. The room around Lupe was Spartan, more suited to a factory worker than the head of Birmingham’s most notorious. Bare shelves, bare walls, bare floor. There was hardly anything personal about her surroundings. Tommy was the one who painted these sparse lodgings with the radiating heat of his presence.

Perhaps the most intimate thing there was here was the dip in the bed next to her, still warm. Dingy white sheets, worn soft with use, contrasted against the greyed wood-paneled walls. It felt like his whole room was tinted in blue. The sickly sweet scent of slightly off chocolate and smoke met her nostrils. It was a smell as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Lupe had smelled it a million times at work. Her fingers, still with caked brown blood under her nails, scrabbled at the drawer in his bedside table where the scent emanated from.

The evidence stared back at her, tempting her with its seductive song like it always did in the brothel. Opium. Good opium, at that. A slender, old fashioned ivory pipe. Out of fashion, now that laudanum was available. Tommy always did seem like the traditional type.

Against her will, Lupe felt herself grow furious. At him for being so stupid, at herself for never noticing. She thought he was getting better. Of course, he wasn’t fine, but he was better. He saved her. How could he do something so awful? How could she be mad at him for doing something she herself sold to other men every night? He was supposed to be her savior. A better person than her. Lupe had built him up in her mind as a towering pillar, unbreakable, cracked but whole. A knight in shining armor. She’d always seen him as the strongest person in the world, the man who had been through Hell and come out the other side better.

How had she never noticed?

The realization cut like a knife; the signs had always been there. She’d just ignored them. The uncoordinated jumble of his limbs when he walked through the door. His body, carved like an emaciated Christ from marble. How she’d mistook the way his pupils twitched for attraction, not a high. He bore his wounded soul to her and she had been blind this whole time. At the end of all things, Tommy was just a man. Not a god. Somehow, if Lupe had just known, maybe she could have saved him… All she had ever known was a life surrounded by addicts of various vices. Yet, she’d never seen the signs.

Guadalupe slammed the drawer shut in a fit of blind fury. She wanted to hit something, make herself bleed, just to feel the sweet relief of crimson dripping down her knuckles. Giving in to the impulse was as easy as breathing. Punishing herself felt like the only way she could atone for her sins, for his sins too. Smears of blood, quickly oxidizing, painted the wall. Good, she thought. Let Thomas wonder what happened here. She was foolish. A foolish little girl who thought everything would be alright and no one would get hurt when she played with fire. Here she was, crying when she got burned. Tears leaked from her eyes, the salted water burning the scrapes on her cheeks as it dripped off her face. Breathe in, breathe out, Guadalupe told herself.

She could feel herself panicking. Those dark tendrils of fear and anxiety crept through her brain and into her throat, suffocating her. Her nails left red marks on her neck as Lupe clawed, desperately trying to breathe. She needed to get away. She needed to think. To breathe. To make sure every one of her sisters made it out of the inspector’s clutches. She hardly had the mental capacity to deal with Thomas right now, much less the opium. The sooner she was out of this house, the better.

Her crumpled, grimy clothes lay on the bare floor where she’d stripped out of them last night. Her heart lay with them. Lupe pulled them on quickly, grimacing at the sensation of the dirty fabric. They would do for however long it took her to make her escape.

Of course, it was just her shit luck that as soon as she pulled on her stockings, the weathered door swung open to reveal the man of the hour. Tommy looked so perfect, so untouched. Groomed and waxed hair and his suit a few years outdated but still crisp, still clean. Lupe saw the signs now. Clear as day. His chest rose and fell slowly, shallowly. When her eyes met his, she could see the pin-point pricks of his pupils against the pale blue of his irises. Thomas took a step towards her as he registered the shock, the fear written across her face. Lupe wanted to believe it was concern. Or love. She wanted to believe so badly. The truth was apparent in the remoteness underlying that beautiful, sculpted, angelic face. 

Around her, the room spun for a moment.

He reached out a hand as if to anchor her, but she flinched away from his touch. “Guadalupe? What’s wrong?” Tommy’s voice was raspy and rough from the cigarette smoke that wafted off him.

Well, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know, so Lupe figured she might as well go for it. “Do you know what opium smells like, Thomas?” She queried, innocent as a lamb. Like a snake, rearing to strike, he pulled away from her. His pale, long-fingered hand drew into a fist at his side.

He snapped at her viciously, the verbal blow surprising her with its’ venom. “Are you judging me?” Maybe she was. Maybe some of her fury was unfairly directed at him when Lupe was truly angry with herself. Tommy must’ve seen that anger in her deep brown eyes. He advanced on her suddenly, his footsteps echoing like church bells. How his face could go from a depiction of angelic perfect to bottomless demonic fury so quickly was beyond her. “How fucking dare you?”

He made her weak. He made tears come to her eyes and made her heart feel as if it was ripping out of her chest. “I’m worried about you, Tommy.” Lupe pleaded. Hear me, she thought. Please. Please don’t do this. Come back to me. Odd how a single sentence could be used to convey so much. Unbidden, her mind flashed to watching her father, in his starched sailor’s uniform, walk away from her, never to return. Her mother had held her back as Lupe screamed, pleaded, even begged, while he kept walking. No, she told herself. Don’t think about that. Don’t. Now is not the time.

“I don’t need you to worry about me. I don’t need anything from you.” The snarl in his voice cut almost worse than the words themselves. That fisted hand came up to slam against the wall behind her as his body moved suddenly, pushing her up against the said wall. The way he looked at her… Like he despised her. Guadalupe never wanted to see that look on his face again if she could help it. It terrified her in the way a hunting dog terrified a fox, primal and instinctual. 

There was no way she could hide, no place she could run. “I just want to help. What’s so awful about that?” Antagonizing him may not have been the smartest decision, but she couldn’t resist getting in a little dig. Fucking Thomas Shelby. Couldn’t be vulnerable to save his life. Not with her, not with anyone.

“I don’t need your help.” He grew closer to her face, almost pressing his forehead against hers in a mockery of intimacy. Somewhere in those icy eyes was the kind man she loved, Lupe knew it. “I don’t need you. Did you forget your place, girl?” That one stung, she wouldn’t lie. What did he mean, he didn’t need her? He needed her last night. Thomas needed her the first night they met. Of course he needed her, she tried to convince herself, even through the pain his words caused. For him, she would take the pain. To a point. Which Tommy was fast approaching. He still looked half a god in the weak, early morning sunlight. Was this what real love was? Weakness?

If she could just get through to him… “It’s not healthy-” Quick as lightning, his hand grabbed her jaw, blunt nails digging into her skin and forcing her face up towards his, forcing her gaze to stay with his. Perhaps if she wasn’t so terrified of losing him, she might find this erotic.

“That’s rich, coming from a slag.” Thomas spat at her in disgust. Disgust. He found her disgusting. He was right; she was nothing but a slag. Not even worth his effort, his time, his compassion. No. No more weakness. No more crying over a man who didn’t deserve it. Guadalupe would have time to mourn later, she decided in a split second. It seemed this man had forgotten exactly what the fuck she was capable of. Rage clouded her vision. How fucking dare he. How dare he call her that when he was the one who paid her, who came to her when she called. How could he say those things when he was the one who needed her, truly? If Lupe didn’t get out of this situation quickly, she would rip his throat out with her bare teeth. And she would end up back in jail. Inspector Campbell might even thank her, she chuckled to herself. 

A vicious smile stretched her face, more akin to the grin of a wolf. He was just a man, at the end of all things. He and his brothers were all scum. He wasn’t worth her love, her time, her effort. She batted away the hand encircling her jaw with lazy ease before wrapping her own hand around his throat with a strength that surprised even her. Oh, he didn’t like that. He didn’t like having the tables turned on him, Lupe could tell. Maybe he should’ve thought of that before he had the audacity to insult her. “...What did you just call me?”

From the choking sounds that issued from his open mouth, he wouldn’t be responding anytime soon. Good. Thomas looked much better when he wasn’t saying anything and fucking things up. “...” 

“Call me that again. Say it to my fucking face again, junkie.” Two could play at this game. That was his sore spot, Lupe could tell. Little Tommy reacted to that one. His brow furrowed and his pale blue eyes darkened with storm clouds. Maybe she shouldn’t be playing with fire, egging this objectively dangerous man into a fight. But he started it. At the moment her hand released his throat, she placed her body weight against his and shoved him out of her path. Just as she made it to the door, her heart pounding with adrenaline, Lupe couldn’t resist one last dig. “Speak to me again, Mr. Shelby. I dare you. You’ll regret it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know the first recorded use of the word junkie was in 1923?

**Author's Note:**

> Some brief context: I am Chinese and Filipina, and thus feel comfortable using racial slurs like "chinkie/chink" as historically appropriate. However, slurs like g***y, while I may include them, I will use asterisks when typing them, as I am not Roma and thus do not personally feel comfortable using them in their entirety, historical appropriateness or not.  
> Additionally, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese diaspora in the West took/have taken Western names while retaining their Chinese names (I included). Thus, Guadalupe, our leading lady, will be referred to both by her Western name and its' nickname, Lupe, and her Chinese name, Xiu Jia/Xiujia.  
> I will cite my historical sources for various features of the setting as needed, for those interested.
> 
> I deeply appreciate you for taking the time to read this little labor of love of mine. I happily take praise of any kind and constructive criticism; please feel free to leave a kudos and/or a comment.


End file.
